


Memories

by paperstorm



Series: 12 Days of Stucky Christmas [9]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bittersweet, M/M, POV Bucky Barnes, Past Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:13:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21866536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperstorm/pseuds/paperstorm
Summary: Part 9 of the 12 Days of Stucky Christmas series. In Romania, Bucky remembers past Christmases.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Series: 12 Days of Stucky Christmas [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1559701
Comments: 23
Kudos: 59





	Memories

_2014_  
  
There are tiny colorful lights all over the city. Boughs of evergreen, most of them fake but artfully arranged. Everything glitters and sparkles. A new kind of music plays, in shops and in the square, when Bucky wanders through them. Shop windows are filled with toys, and shiny gift-wrap, and giant plastic bows. The adverts, when he sees them on buses and hears them on the radio, are about tent sales, and payment plans, and ideas for that ‘someone special’. He isn’t sure what any of that means. It must be normal, in the future, but it’s all gibberish to him.  
  
He remembers what Christmas is. But like so many things, he remembers it only on the surface. He remembers it existing, like baseball and airplanes and the cinema. He remembers what it celebrates, and certain traditions, and what most people do on December 25th with their families. It does seem a bit different, than what he remembers from Brooklyn. It seems bigger, more expensive, more extravagant. Brooklyn was certainly never covered in millions of twinkly lights. Public decorations existed, but were much scarcer. It looks pretty, though. He doesn’t hate it. It gives a soft glow to the city he’s taking refuge in, since returning to his former home in New York isn’t an option. They’ll be looking for him, in Brooklyn.  
  
But like so many of his memories, it only seems to be on the very top layer of his consciousness. He remembers that Christmas exists. He doesn’t remember _feeling_ it. He must have, at one point in his past, before Hydra. He was a human, like any other. He had a family, and friends. He lived in a neighborhood among others who celebrated this particular holiday. He must have enjoyed it, he must have bought and received presents, he must have laughed and drank and eaten too much and spent time with his family.  
  
And with Steve. He assumes as much, anyway. He doesn’t really remember it all that well, but it makes logical sense, that he would have spent this time of joy and laughter and love with Steve. Bucky wishes he could feel the memory. He wishes it didn’t feel like something that happened in someone else’s lifetime, like a movie he saw recently enough to recall the plot but long enough ago that there are no lingering emotions attached to it.  
  
“Craciun Fericit,” an elderly woman says to him, after he bumps into her accidentally and apologizes for the inconvenience his presence causes.  
  
_Happy Christmas_.  
  
He’s fluent in Romanian. He’s fluent in a number of languages, he’s discovered, since running away from them. He never knew that. He always responded in kind when he was spoken to and an answer was required. He was so deep under their control that he never had the physical awareness to understand that the noises coming from his mouth at any given time were in six, maybe seven different dialects. When he’d run, he’d discovered his multilingualism came in handy. And that Bucharest was safe because he could be anonymous here, blending in with people who assumed he’d been born here like they were. Hydra took the time to teach him regional accents. Hydra took the time to teach him many things, most of which he’d sooner forget, but this is one he’ll keep, if he can.  
  
He returns her kindness, shifting his facial muscles into a smile.  
  
He makes his way to the Central Market. It begins to snow, but gently. _Ninge._ Snowflakes drift slowly down from a stormy-grey sky, floating on the breeze. They land in his hair, and he brushes them out with his gloved hands once he’s indoors. He has a list, on a scrap of yellow lined paper in his pocket, and he pulls it out, grabbing a basket and wandering up and down the aisles, picking up the items he’d written down earlier this morning and a few other things that catch his eye. _Pizza pockets._ He doesn’t know what they are, but they appear from the image on the box to contain cheese and tomato sauce, and he likes both of those things. They’re also cooked in the microwave, and he has one of those. It was already in his apartment, when he moved in. It scared him, at first. By now, he’s used to it. He puts the yellow box into his basket, and notices just the slightest skip in his step as he carries on. It pleases him, to try new things. Makes him feel like he’s taking back the autonomy they stole from him for so many years.  
  
On the speakers above him the tail end of a song he doesn’t recognize fades away. Then, after a moment of silence, a new one begins playing. Bucky finds himself stopping, in the aisle next to the jarred pickles and olives. The hairs on his arms stand on end. He frowns, and then glances up at the ceiling, in search of a speaker. He locates one above the entrance to the next aisle, and hurries there, so he can stand under it to hear the music more clearly.  
  
_Have yourself a merry little Christmas_ , a male voice croons, clear and unhurried. In the background, Bucky recognizes instruments for which his subconscious supplies the word _strings_. Higher in pitch than the voice, but smooth and soft and lovely to listen to.  
  
He remembers snow. He remembers lanterns, lit with flames and sustained with oil, casting blurry glowing light over a small space. He remembers creaky wooden floors, and peeling wallpaper, and a bed with a metal frame. And a uniform. Steve. He remembers Steve. Blond hair swept deliberately to one side, sky-blue eyes, pink lips. Taller than Bucky, but only slightly. Less than an inch. Wider than Bucky in the shoulders. More impressive than Bucky, in every way that mattered to those around them. It hadn’t been that way, before. In Brooklyn, Bucky had been the headliner; Steve the afterthought. During the war, that was one of dozens of things that were suddenly drastically different.  
  
_From now on, our troubles will be miles away,_ the man sings. Bucky inhales. The breath draws in sharper than he meant it to.  
  
“Esti bine?”  
  
It’s repeated twice, each time louder than the last, before Bucky realizes the words are being directed at him. _Are you alright?_ A concerned man, with dark hair and scars on his face, is frowning in front of him.  
  
Bucky shakes himself. “Da,” he answers. He tries to smile, but isn’t sure he manages it convincingly, and the man continues to frown as he hurries away.  
  
He leaves his basket on the floor next to the butcher counter, and ventures back out into the cold. He has cans of condensed soup, back at his apartment. Good enough, for tonight.  
  
On the walk home, he thinks. Struggles to remember more, until suddenly it begins to flow, flooding back to him in technicolor. By the time he’s climbing the stairs to his apartment, he can hum the entire thing.  
  
Once the door is closed, locks securely fastened, Bucky shrugs out of his coat and hat and gloves and collapses down onto his stiff mattress. He lies, limbs spread out, staring up at the ceiling. He doesn’t see the water-stained tiles, though. Behind his eyes, he sees basecamp. He sees snow, and greenish-brown uniforms, and a dazzling smile. He sees a big hand, reaching out for him, pulling him in close when Bucky took it. An arm that wraps around his waist. A chest that is big and solid to lean against. A quiet voice, singing in his ear, warm breath sliding down his neck.  
  
_Through the years we all will be together, if the fates allow …_  
  
It isn’t Steve, singing. It was. In the memory, it was. Just now, it’s Bucky. His own voice, unused in song for nearly seven decades, but his vocal chords and the muscles in his throat remember how to do it.  
  
“And have yourself a merry little Christmas, now,” he sings softly, just to himself. To the version of himself that exists here and now, and to the one from all those years ago. The scared boy trapped in a war, sent off to a foreign country to fight the battles of kings and statesmen that he had nothing to do with. The boy who, in the midst of it all, found solace on Christmas Eve, in the arms of someone who loved him, dancing secretly to a song that made them homesick.  
  
Steve loved him. For the first time since he escaped, Bucky feels it.

**Author's Note:**

> Come talk to me [on tumblr](http://paper-storm.tumblr.com/) [or twitter](https://twitter.com/turningthedials) if you want!


End file.
